Design by Needle Crossings

Needlepoint Now is an excellent magazine for picking up new needlepoint ideas and stitching information. The book also has impressive production values, beautiful artwork, and its articles are well written, technically sophisticated, and, best of all, useful.

For example, last summer NN came out with an article featuring a needlepoint adaptation of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, PA (July/August 2012, vol. XIV, no. 4., p 53-55).  Anne Stradal’s ”Making It Simple” column really wowed me. In particular,  I loved the sky that she created using needle blending techniques that incorporated a family of blue DMC embroidery floss.

As you know, if you read my blog regularly, I have this thing about houses:  I love to stitch designs of homes done in classic Americana style.

Now, I had been working on this design by Needle Crossings of a conch house, but was kind of stuck on what to do about the sky. I didn’t want to do a pattern stitch or use an overdyed thread and I wanted it to look realistic.

But then I remembered the article and I thought why not use Anne’s idea for the sky in this piece? After rereading the article carefully and assembling my flosses, I started my little experiment.

I do not have the amount of space that Anne had for her backdrop, so I have done an abbreviated version of what she outlined in her article. I love the way the sky actually makes my little conch house pop. That was an unintended consequence, but one that I am very pleased about.

There are a few things I don’t like about the canvas as it is right now. I did not use a frame (I thought I would stitch it a lot quicker than I did), so it’s kind of crooked.  Some of the silk threads have backed out of the holes and must be re-stitched. And there are some missed stitches and areas of the canvas that I have not gotten to yet.  Oh well, patience’s the thing when it comes to needlepoint.

I really like this idea of needle blending and will definitely use the technique again. It’s great to have  resources like Needlepoint Now to get fresh ideas on how to stitch a canvas.  Anyway, I will put up a nice pic of the finished piece after it’s blocked.

Later, gators.

© Erin McGrath and Needlepointland.com, 2012 – 2016.